THE PANGAEA SOLUTION

A banker investigates his father’s suspicious death and stumbles on a terrorist conspiracy in this debut novel.

David Blum, a 38-year-old senior adviser at Regency Bank, receives devastating news: His father, Solomon, a professor of political science, has just died of a heart attack. David rushes to his hometown, Champaign, Illinois, and receives an alarming note from a stranger, Hans Meier, who claims to have information about the true nature of Solomon’s death. Hans arranges a meeting with David but never shows up. In fact, Hans—a graduate student and an admirer of Solomon—seems to have disappeared. In addition, the student’s home has been searched. David, a former FBI agent, decides to conduct an investigation of his own and finds a cryptic note in Hans’ handwriting that appears to anticipate the intentional unleashing of some kind of epidemic. Generating considerable suspense and enough plausibility for a novelistic version of a big-budget movie, the story details David’s race to thwart a biomedical act of terrorism by an insane agricultural scientist, Otto Feldmann. David tracks down a woman, Kay Westfield, who 20 years earlier inadvertently witnessed Feldmann supervise a bizarre experiment that involved an exploding plane, poison gas, and rapidly dying animals. Jacobs’ plot hurtles along at an agreeably swift pace, never lagging, always delivering a steady stream of easily digestible entertainment. The tale is a very familiar one, even formulaic, and Feldmann, a “consummate soulless scientist—all brain and no heart,” is an unreconstructed type, a kind of barely personified cliché. But the book’s strengths are neither depth nor originality, but rather taut, lucidly described drama and a magnetic leading man. For readers with the proper expectations, this novel provides an enjoyable way to spend a leisurely afternoon.

A derivative but well-crafted and engaging bioweapon tale.